A key convention of the popular music concert is the co-presence of spectator and performer, with both sharing a physical proximity, a spatial being-together in the event. This chapter interrogates inter-medial pop concerts in which the presence of performers is intersected with, or replaced by, virtual representations, or animated avatars, producing new interactions of image projection, sound reproduction and perceptual conditions. I explore modes of performer embodiment in an emergent genre – the virtually animated pop performance – and ask how new relations between space, body and sound address the spectator in new ways. I examine features of this genre in the context of debates centred on inter-mediality, examining issues of representation and reception, actual and virtual presence, authenticity and identity, liveness and affective sound. I delineate examples of past music/sound-driven performances by the Velvet Underground and Madonna to illustrate generic conventions of the intermedial pop concert, and analyse new techniques and intermedialities employed by the animated pop group Gorillaz.

Being There: PRESENCE, LIVENESS AND INTER-MEDIALITY IN POP-MUSIC PERFORMANCE

It is not possible to define exhaustively the parameters of artistic performance, as the term has accrued multiple meanings for different contexts, genres and modes of expression including theatre, dance and live art, but aspects of the concept require investigation in the light of musical mediated expression. Musical performance implies that something, usually a systematised musical work, is presented by performers during a live event before an audience.